Learn powerful, deep research methods. Do it and use it!

This Book Will Help You Become a Top Notch Researcher!

Finding good sites to metal detect is hard work. Finding them without research is near impossible. In this comprehensive book, we’ll guide you to wonderful resources and show you useful skills to aid you in your quest. Research isn’t easy, often confusing. You will have to work to get excellent results, but if you’ve found this site, you clearly are working to improve your skills.

If you are like me, you want to find good sites to hunt, and rule out crappy ones. Not only will you learn how to find good leads, you will develop skill to throw some of those leads out based on primary and secondary source criteria. You’ll learn how to spot “iffy” sources and recognize author bias. Best of all, you will develop critical thinking skills.

On a farm near his home Terry Herbert shows off the metal detector that led him to the gold. "I just couldn't stop the items from coming out of the ground," he says. He received half the treasure's assessed value of almost $5.3 million

This year’s hunt will have at least 10,000 relics buried in the ground for the hunt.Items will consist of:Coins, Buttons, CampItems, Bullets, and Shell Fragments will be buried, including medium grade US Plates.Prize tokens will also be buried to be awarded at the end of the hunt.Those tokens not found will be drawn for.We will limit the amount of hunters to no more than 200 participants.This is to eliminate overcrowding and to ensure a quality hunt is had by all.The hunt will take place on 2 10-acre fields.

Unfortunately, with the increase in popularity and price of genuine slave tags, the crooks and con-artists have moved in. In the past several years a number of counterfeit Slave Tags and fantasy tags have appeared, as well as a very few cast counterfeit "Am I Not a Woman and Sister" tokens. Some of these are obvious, others exceedingly deceptive. The general types are:

High Quality Counterfeit Charleston Slave Tags:

These are exact reproductions of genuine tags, made with bar-punches so the letters are raised. Most GENUINE Slave Tags have the city "Charleston", the occupation, such as "Servant" and the year, such as "1860" all struck on a tag from bar-punches, with raised letters. Additionally a serial number is incused punched. Some early genuine tags also have a silversmith bar-punch mark. Several years ago a crook had some bar-punch dies made up, to closely duplicate genuine tags. While there are many identifying characteristics of these fakes, the novice collector can easily be duped. Some of these modern fakes have been struck in lead, or on sheets of lead with multiple strikes. If you have purchased a slave tag from ANYONE without a guarantee of authenticity and a 100% money back guarantee, IN WRITING, you can probably kiss your money goodbye. Sorry to be so negative, and yes, it is possible to get genuine tags for nominal sums, but there are a lot of fakes out there. If you want a genuine Slave Tag, buy the book first! Only $25 (see below).

FAKE:1841 Charleston Servant Slave Tag. A SRUCK tag, very deceptive, from modern dies. Very dangerous, looks great. Often offered on eBay by sellers with high feedback, with a warranty. TOTALLY FAKE, and the sellers are crooks! Just try to get your money back!

FAKE:1856 Charleston Servant Slave Tag with Bill of Sale: A STRUCK tag, very deceptive, from modern dies. Looks great, on the correct size and shape metal planchet, green patina overall. Often sold with high quality total fantasy Bill of Sale, with serial number of Tag on the Bill of Sale! Paper is 7 1/8 x 9 1/8", "Slave - Charleston - Bill 18 (56)/ No (533) Value $ (800), with handwritten information as to supposed sale of negro, with large eagle lower left, printed info, etc., signed at bottom right twice. On artifically aged course paper, with 1856 wax seal, signed in aged brown ink, with embossed "Charleston" seal bottom left (see eagle image for partial "Charleston"). Some of these have fake damage to edges of the paper. A total fabrication, nicely aged and highly deceptive.

FAKE: 1862 Charleston Servant Slave Tag - A STRUCK tag, very deceptive, from modern dies. This specimen is on lead, which was never used for original Tags. Very dangerous! Another example, on copper, from a photograph.

Top 10 Reasons to go Geocaching

We recently had a family gathering at our place and at one point we were talking about Geocaching and our upcoming trip (surprise, surprise). The brother-in-law posed a question that sort of threw us for a loop. He asked, “Why do you do it?” Of course, our quick reply was, “Because it’s fun!”.

However, this didn’t explain why we believe it is so fun so we thought a bit more and here, in no particular order, is our Top 10 Reasons To Go Geocaching:

Great ExerciseWalking is one of the greatest exercises and one of our great pleasures. Geocaching offers us a walk with a purpose. It entices us to walk further, and most time unknowingly. Time and distance just seems to fade away. We look forward to ‘going Geocaching’ a whole lot more than ‘another walk around the block’! And, of course, there’s that mad dash when we spot the cache that really gets the blood flowing!

Quality Family TimeGeocaching offers a chance for us to participate in something together. Today’s schedules can get quite hectic and we find Geocaching is a great grounding point. We have also had the chance to share this with other family members and have had a great time. We have several friends with young families that Geocache and it’s a real treat to see the children’s eyes light up when you mention ‘treasure hunting’!

COINS; Rare Slave Badges To Be Sold at Auction

COMING to auction on Sept. 9 is a collection of very rare slave-hiring badges from Charleston, S.C. Slave-hiring badges were issued to the owners of slaves who wished to rent them out for day work. In more rural places such an arrangement would have been a purely private affair, but in Charleston the practice became regulated in the early 18th century, and by 1751, hired-out slaves were required to wear badges.

Only 100 or so badges are now extant, and Stack's, which is handling the sale for the John J. Ford Jr. Collection, estimates that the 14 being offered will bring anywhere from $200 to $4,000. While thousands of badges are thought to have been issued by Mobile, Ala.; Savannah, Ga., and New Orleans, only badges from Charleston are known to exist. What happened to all the others is a mystery.

While the badges seem deeply repugnant today -- similar badges were also issued for dogs -- they are illustrative of the culture of slavery. Slaves hired for day work were paid less than whites, and because employers wanted to save money, whites were soon losing business. So Charleston instituted not only the badge system but also a quota system to protect white jobs: fewer badges were issued for occupations in which whites might lose jobs to slaves and more badges were issued for occupations in which nonwhites predominated.